# Russia hates Pokemon



## Shiny Grimer (Jul 2, 2009)

(the title is extreme but w/e)

Article here. It's pretty old, but relevant to the rest of my post.

Quoted are the parts that refer to Pokemon:


> The Russian Ministry of Education has included Barbie along with a list of other toys and games, such as Pokémon, that face a ban because of the supposedly harmful effects they have on the minds of young children. [...]
> 
> A council of experts was created in December, whose first results decreed that Pokémon cards, which have gained the same cult status in Russian playgrounds as in those of Britain, must be altered, removing orders on the cards bidding children, or Pokémon characters, to poison or kill other Pokémon characters. The decree also demanded the cards be translated into Russian, the latter move seen as an attempt to protect the mother tongue from Western infection.
> 
> ...


So yeah, that's what's relevant to this forum, but read the whole thing because it's kind of scary the control that the Kremlin exhibits over Russia. In fact, it's pretty reminiscent of something... hmm... Soviet Union, perhaps?

Also, the DS sort of failed in Russia too. It seems Nintendo is failing to get a grip on Russia.

Quite notable, since I was looking for the names of Russian episodes of Pokemon, is the propaganda on Russian Wikipedia's Pokemon page. "Но не коммерческий успех, а более сомнительное достижение сделало «Покемона» самым известным и самым обсуждаемым аниме XX века." = "but it is not commercial success, but rather a more dubious achievment that made Pokemon the most recognizable and well-known anime of the 21st century."

There's then a _huge_ fucking wall of text about the banned Porygon episode and how epileptic shocks made Pokemon famous. No, it wasn't the game, or the anime, or the trading cards, or Nintendo's very successful advertising campaign, it was an event caused by an episode that aired once in Japan and which the Pokemon administration took steps to make sure was never repeated. Oh, Russian propaganda, you never fail to disappoint. There's even _diagrams_ explaining how epilepsies are caused.

tl;dr, Pokemon's not gaining a foothold in Russia anytime soon because it CORRUPTS CHILDREN and causes EPILEPTIC SHOCK.


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## spaekle (Jul 2, 2009)

Wow, I thought the "pogeymanz is evil" thing died with the 90's.

Although I _do_ remember a story about it being banned in a different country after a kid fell off a balcony while imitating something he saw in an episode of the show or something.

Edit: Found article!

Edit2: The article mentions Russia banning Barbie too; kind of funny, because a bill was brought before my state's legislature trying to do the same thing. I don't think it really got anywhere though.


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## Vladimir Putin's LJ (Jul 2, 2009)

This article is from 2002 and I know for a fact Russians do play Pokémon so errr maybe the bill failed?
Russian cartoons own everything though. Nu, Pogodil! <3

It is kind of weird how no one had an iPhone or whatever. But oh well, they're happy.


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## Shiny Grimer (Jul 2, 2009)

russian cartoons are cool. they provided memorable phrases for cuban children during the cold war.

im trying to look up more stuff about pokemon in russia, but it's not popular and the games aren't translated to russian so yeah. it's also hard to find russian episodes of the anime. I've been able to find only the opening song. none of the big russian anime providers seem to have pokemon dvds.

also pokemon is banned in the arab world because pokemon apparently means "I am a jew" in japanese and promotes zionist values. :x


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## Vladimir Putin's LJ (Jul 2, 2009)

... said:


> also pokemon is banned in the arab world because pokemon apparently means "I am a jew" in japanese and promotes zionist values. :x


hahahaha


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## Lady Grimdour (Jul 2, 2009)

Uneasy chuckling aside, I can't blame them for the push for Russian translations.


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